1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an accounting system, and in particular to technology for speeding up the accounting when preparing a financial report for an entire group corporation consisting of a plurality of companies.
2. Related Art
In recent years, commercial transactions between member corporations within group corporations have become large-scale and extremely complicated. Corporate evaluation of these corporations using consolidated accounting for the entire group corporation, rather than non-consolidated accounting conducted separately for each corporation, has internationally become the norm, with the importance of consolidated accounting also being gradually recognized in Japan in recent years.
The difference between non-consolidated and consolidated accounting is discussed briefly here. With non-consolidated accounting, for example, if Company A bills Company B for 100 dollars, Company B appropriates 100 dollars as a debit amount relating to Company A, and Company A appropriates 100 dollars as a credit amount relating to Company B. This results in a sale based on the transaction with Company B appearing on Company A's financial report, and an expenditure based on the transaction with Company A appearing on Company B's financial report.
In contrast, with consolidated accounting, companies A and B are considered as a single group corporation, and a financial report is prepared with Company A's 100 dollar credit with respect to Company B and Company B's 100 dollar debit with respect to Company A offsetting one another. Thus, with the financial report for the entire group corporation that includes Company A and Company B, the respective sale and expenditure based on the transaction between companies A and B are eliminated.
Here, “elimination” refers to the non-appropriation of credits and debits in the financial report for an entire group corporation, due to the offsetting, in the accounting process for the entire group corporation, of debits and credits provisionally appropriated in the accounting between individual corporations within the group corporation based on commercial transactions between these corporations.
To implement this elimination, complicated and time-consuming processing is needed in the accounts department of individual corporations to careful examine and approve the billing content (see Japanese Patent Publication No. 11-203373).
In recent years, corporations in Japan have been rapidly diversifying and internationalizing, as seen in the expansion of economic activities and the procurement of overseas capital now being actively pursued. Also, the environment in which corporations operate has changed remarkably, with the increasing participation of foreign investors in the Japanese share market, for instance, and, together with the strengthening trend in corporations towards recognizing the importance of consolidated accounting, the demand for consolidated information from investors in order to precisely infer to risks and returns borne by industry groups is on the increase. In particular, the prompt presentation of financial reports for group corporations is an important element in strengthening investor trust, and also in deciding the timing and amount of investments.
However, the elimination of appropriated credits and debits arising from commercial transactions between individual corporations within a group corporation is, as mentioned above, a time-consuming process and one of the primary factors delaying the preparation of financial reports for entire group corporations.